I have recently purchased a hand fired antique coal / wood burning stove that I had completely refubished. It is a Geneva Oak cylinder style stove built in 1904. It has regular coal grates and came with a wood grate that goes over those. My question is this . The restorer / dealer said that I should install a manual damper in the flue when I pipe the stove into my masonry chimney. Should I install a manual damper or are the supply air intakes, of which there are 3, (two below the grate and one above) sufficient for controlling heat loss out of the chimney. I will be burning both coal and wood in the stove at different times of the year. I have lots of free firewood that I will burn in the fall and the spring nights only because no one is home during the day. In the dead of winter I will switch to coal. Also my wife will be operating the stove sometimes and I dont want to add a damper if it is not necessary because of a possible carbon monoxide danger. She is not adept at technical things such as this. I dont want to put the family in danger. Anybody have an opinion whether I should install a manual damper or not? Thanks for any adviceScott

Most of those older style stoves had a lot of leaks, hopefully yours has all the doors fitting very tight, the sections sealed with furnace cement and the air-draft controls will seal off the stove well enough to control the draft.

When those stoves were new, everybody knew how to safely use a manual damper. And homes 'back then' had a lot of infiltration, poor windows, and in general lots of air leaks supplying the house with lots of fresh air.. If your home is pretty tight, with good windows, weather strippiing, etc,, then the amount of fresh air is greatly reduced..

Since you are planing on burning wood, the use of a barometric damper is pretty much ruled out, because of creosote deposits on the flapper door will change the baro's callibration.. If you were going to burn only coal,, I'd recommend a barometric damper.

With wood, you may have to have a manual damper, especially if your stove is not airtight enough to control the fire otherwise. If you have a draft issue with wood, it will tell you: wood smoke stinks, burns the nose and eyes.. But when you burn coal... I'd keep the damper wide open.. and make sure you have several CO detectors around the house.

Since adding a hand damper is quite easy,, maybe it would be best to just try the stove without it first... and see if you can control the fire to your liking..

this is an old thread but worth reviving, if you burn coal I'd recommend NOT putting a damper of any type in the flue pipe. Why would you want to risk it closing and pushing CO gas into your living area.

I've seen a lot of these questions asked on the coal/wood stove forums and some of the answers just make me scratch my head, it sounds like the guys that make money selling dampers always want you to buy one. In reality, you don't need one, unless you have a chimney with such a strong updraft it's making the fire run away even with all the front draft controls closed-

or, if you are burning a lot of fuel and not getting any heat

I'd try what the first guy said, try the stove without a damper.

common sense and intuition tell me, pounding a potato up a car exhaust will back up the fumes into the car. The manual dampers were invented in 1810 when there was no such thing as insulation in homes and they were full of drafts. Today's modern homes are actually overinsulated to the point I have to crack a window to get good draft to my coal stove.

if you burn wood a barometric damper runs the risk of running full open during a chimney fire as well. It would sense a chimney fire updraft as an excessive draft condition, and go full open into the room, pulling fresh room air into the chimney the feeding the chimney fire. It would burn your house down.

the barometric damper is an oil burning furnace device that was adapted to a coal/wood stove and it's not a good idea at all. If you block the chimney flow, the smoke and gases have to go somewhere else instead, that reduces the pull up the chimney, the result is, the smoke/gases will go into the room.

coalcracker wrote:this is an old thread but worth reviving, if you burn coal I'd recommend NOT putting a damper of any type in the flue pipe. Why would you want to risk it closing and pushing CO gas into your living area.

I've seen a lot of these questions asked on the coal/wood stove forums and some of the answers just make me scratch my head, it sounds like the guys that make money selling dampers always want you to buy one. In reality, you don't need one, unless you have a chimney with such a strong updraft it's making the fire run away even with all the front draft controls closed-

or, if you are burning a lot of fuel and not getting any heat

I'd try what the first guy said, try the stove without a damper.

common sense and intuition tell me, pounding a potato up a car exhaust will back up the fumes into the car. The manual dampers were invented in 1810 when there was no such thing as insulation in homes and they were full of drafts. Today's modern homes are actually overinsulated to the point I have to crack a window to get good draft to my coal stove.

if you burn wood a barometric damper runs the risk of running full open during a chimney fire as well. It would sense a chimney fire updraft as an excessive draft condition, and go full open into the room, pulling fresh room air into the chimney the feeding the chimney fire. It would burn your house down.

the barometric damper is an oil burning furnace device that was adapted to a coal/wood stove and it's not a good idea at all. If you block the chimney flow, the smoke and gases have to go somewhere else instead, that reduces the pull up the chimney, the result is, the smoke/gases will go into the room.

with wood that would be annoying, with coal that would be deadly

thread to confusing after reading use of wood & coal and the fact its an antique base burner which essentially has its own built in mpd... some of general references you make regarding dampers with use of coal are very wrong and simply don't apply to this particular unique case. with an airtight coal stove if the draft was plugged 100% (which does not happen even if a mpd closed inadvertently) the stove would go out swiftly.

About 99% of the members here use a barometric or manual damper or sometimes even both.

coalcracker wrote:the barometric damper is an oil burning furnace device that was adapted to a coal/wood stove and it's not a good idea at all. If you block the chimney flow, the smoke and gases have to go somewhere else instead, that reduces the pull up the chimney, the result is, the smoke/gases will go into the room.

I totally disagree, as many here will.. THis is what manometers are for, to make sure you maintain negative pressure in the system. Baros on a coal fired appliance keep the negative pressure in the burn chamber consistent, which in turn gives you a steady heat output. I totally believe in my baro.

coalcracker wrote:if you burn coal I'd recommend NOT putting a damper of any type in the flue pipe. Why would you want to risk it closing and pushing CO gas into your living area.

There are manual dampers specific to coal burning that have holes in them which allow harmful gases to pass with the damper fully closed. Manual dampers help to keep heat in the stove rather then sending it out the chimney, that would be a waste!

coalcracker wrote: The manual dampers were invented in 1810 when there was no such thing as insulation in homes and they were full of drafts.

I cannot argue the fact when manual dampers where invented, I'm just not that smart... . It's not rocket science though, to preserve heat output from your stove you need to slow the flow of exhaust gases! If not then the heat your stove is generating is going right out the chimney.

coalcracker wrote: if you burn wood a barometric damper runs the risk of running full open during a chimney fire as well. It would sense a chimney fire updraft as an excessive draft condition, and go full open into the room, pulling fresh room air into the chimney the feeding the chimney fire.

Very true. Easy solution is to remove the barometric damper and cap the tee when burning wood .

coalcracker wrote: the barometric damper is an oil burning furnace device that was adapted to a coal/wood stove and it's not a good idea at all.

Oil burning units pose the same CO threats as coal burning units, not because of barometric dampers but because both fuels produce CO! When properly installed and maintained they help create a steady burn with minimal temperature spikes.

Stove manufacturers have their own guidelines for their particular units. I recommend following your stove manufacturers installation instructions. My stove recommends using both a manual and barometric damper. I've run my stove every way possible...neither, both, just a baro and just a manual damper. I've noticed significant differences in every setup. I now use both! Good luck

coalcracker wrote:this is an old thread but worth reviving, if you burn coal I'd recommend NOT putting a damper of any type in the flue pipe.

Wow! Such a strong "opinion". If you've spent anytime on this site, you'll observe TONS of experienced stove burners here that can and will totally destroy any advice you have concerning this. I myself ran my stove W/O a damper for a couple seasons, and experienced problems. The manufacturer recommended a draft of .04, and the only way to provide this was with a damper. With the help of a manometer, along with an MPD, my stove works much better, yet I'm still looking for improvements. If you have no issues with your stove, consider yourself lucky. But I'll bet yours could be improved on also, if it were set up properly.

In my opinion no manual damper when burning coal in any stove air tight or not. Absolutely no to a baro in any wood stove, nothing like flooding your chimney with lots and lots of fresh oxygen to get that creosote just a blazing. The above combinations are like playing Russian roulette with the whole family. I think I will pass on both and stick to board games.

Ahhhh, you girly stove guys. I've run an MPD in my HITZER for 5 yrs & it works outstandingly. No conspiracy theory or anything:) In the cuff seasons, people do cover the baro with tin foil & you're right--not good with wood burning exclusively.